Birth, marriage and death certificates, history books with maps, census records, naturalization forms, yellowed newspaper clippings, old family photographs, probate files, obituaries…to a genealogist it's all about the relatives.

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Washington County Maryland 1877

According to the 1870 census, my third great-grandparents 40 year old shoemaker Morgan Clark and his 34 year old wife Susan have eight children.

The census taker also recorded the families living near the Clarks. It was interesting to read the list of names, but it was far more interesting to see the neighborhood in 1877, not long after the census was taken.

And that’s where I found M[organ] H[enry] Clark and his family. They are on a corner in lot 768:

There is an index under the map listing all the names it includes. Matching the names on the index to the names on the map and in the 1870 census gave me another view of the world in which my ancestors lived.